


You are free, you are free with me

by Elisexyz



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Post-Uprising
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-18
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2019-04-04 07:56:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14015766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elisexyz/pseuds/Elisexyz
Summary: She knew that she couldn’t possibly hope to keep it a secret forever, but— coming home to find the whole team in their living room, guns blazing and obviously no idea that they’d findherthere too, isn’t really how she would have liked to break the news to them.





	You are free, you are free with me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OutlandishWhalesharks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OutlandishWhalesharks/gifts).



> Written for a Tumblr prompt, [“This is awkward” + Biospecialist](http://heytheredeann.tumblr.com/post/172008475609/hi-biospecialist-this-is-awkward-please), requested by OutlandishWhalesharks. I wasn't expecting it to get 2k words long, but that seems to be the story of my life LOL. Enjoy!

“Oh, well,” Grant muses, and Jemma knows that the arm that he’s thrown around her waist is no accident. “This is awkward.”

‘Awkward’ isn’t the word that _she_ would have used. ‘Mortifying’ comes closer. ‘Disastrous’ is also accurate.

She knew that she couldn’t possibly hope to keep it a secret forever, but— coming home to find the whole team in their living room, guns blazing and obviously no idea that they’d find _her_ there too, isn’t really how she would have liked to break the news to them.

Skye is the first to remember how to speak. “Let her _go_ ,” she snarls, jerking her gun up and pointing it right at Grant’s forehead. He seems unfazed, but Jemma doesn’t like it one bit.

“No, no, wait,” she intervenes, wishing to be tall enough to provide a decent human shield. Under normal circumstances, Grant would take the lead and she’d probably let him, because trying to order him around during a shoot-out would be like letting him call the shots in her lab, but right now she’s pretty confident that her former team won’t fire any bullets at her.

Not _completely_ sure, because if for now they still believe that she’s merely a victim here she’s about to crush their theory, but still. Grant is certainly going to get himself killed if he tries anything.

“He’s not _keeping_ me,” she says, which draws a few disbelieving looks from everyone present. It’s just a few moments, though, then they are back to denial.

“No, Jemma— Hydra _brainwashes_ people, he must—” Skye tries again, but she’s interrupted.

“He did nothing of the sort,” Jemma cuts her off, and she’s not sure if sounding so indignant about it is a good play. Still, she can’t help it. “I came to him willingly.”

“You said you were going to your parents,” Coulson intervenes. Jemma isn’t sure if he believes her, but he’s studying them, and it’s a miracle that Grant has been keeping his mouth shut. “You’ve gotten better at lying, it seems.”

“Actually,” she replies. “My exact words were that I would go _home_.”

She does feel a bit proud of her deception there, and as much as she would have preferred to keep that particular thought private, it occurred to her that recalling her exact words might help Coulson rule out that she’s somehow an impostor, on the off-chance that he was theorizing that.

“Aw, you heard that?” Grant intervenes, and Jemma doesn’t have to look at him to know that he’s grinning. “I’m her _home_.” Of course she couldn’t possibly hope that he’d stay quiet through the whole thing. She resolves to just elbowing him, which gets a quiet chuckle out of the moron. She just hopes that he won’t start kissing her head or calling her pet names just to mess with a bunch of people that would like nothing more than to gut him. Especially May: her expression is terrifying.

“Jemma,” Skye tries again. “If he’s coercing you in _any_ way— we can help, alright?”

Jemma feels a slight smile softening her features at her concern. “He’s not,” she assures, gently. “As I’ve said, I came to him willingly.”

Skye just stares at her for a few seconds, then her expression hardens. “How _can_ you?” she snaps. “He must have done something to you— He got Fitz _killed_ , how can you stand to even _look_ at him?”

Jemma flinches at the mention of Fitz and she feels Grant’s arm tightening around her waist. It grounds her. “That wasn’t him,” she states, her voice as firm as she can make it, her eyes fixed on Skye. “As you know,” she adds. She recalls having that conversation, explaining what happened— she also remembers how adamant everyone was on not letting her believe for a second that what Grant did was to be taken as proof that he’s not a monster.

“It was all _because_ of him!” Skye insists, and she’s so upset that she’s waving the gun around, forgetting to keep it locked on her target. “Fitz would be alive if—”

“ _I_ would be dead too, if it wasn’t for Grant,” Jemma cuts her off. “And— Fitz firmly believed that he cared about us. He wouldn’t fault me for believing it too.”

“Look at where that got him,” Skye snarls, her hands steady again as she glares at Grant. Jemma just wishes that she’d drop this line of conversation, because it took weeks for her to stop replaying every day, every _minute_ , the image of them being found, of Fitz trying to attack one of Garrett’s men and ending up _shot_ , right in front of her, of that same man dropping on the ground with a bullet in his head as he tried to drag her outside and on the Bus. Grant saved her. The only thing that Jemma knows is that she was shaking, she was terrified out of her mind and her body didn’t seem to remember that Grant was supposed to be the enemy as he made her hide and he ordered to stay put until the Bus was in the air, assuring her that everything would be fine, apologizing for what happened to Fitz— and God, there was Fitz’s dead body lying a few feet away from them.

SHIELD, or whatever was left of it, didn’t feel safe after that. She couldn’t sleep, she couldn’t look at what was left of their team and not see the pity and the grief in their eyes, she couldn’t even set foot in the lab without coming close to a nervous breakdown.

Is it so _wrong_ that she pursued the only thing, the only _person_ , that had made her feel a bit better, if only for a moment?

“What happened to him is not on Grant,” Jemma states, and the quiver in her voice is a bit too noticeable for her liking. “Now I’d like to know what you’re doing in our house. Have you come to arrest us?”

She deliberately puts emphasis on the _us_ , and Grant shifts lightly behind her, a small token of his discomfort with the idea.

“Just him,” Coulson replies, his eyes moving to Grant, who scoffs.

“Yeah— thanks, but no thanks.”

“Nobody is _asking_ ,” May hisses.

“I go where he goes,” Jemma intervenes. She isn’t even sure about what she’s trying to accomplish: she can’t bet that they _won’t_ cage her too, and at that point they’ll be prisoners together period, unless Grant manages to escape somehow – and, admittedly, an escape would be easier to orchestrate on his own.

On the other hand, there’s no way they are letting him go just for her sake.

“We are not caging _you_ ,” Skye snaps, horrified. When nobody voices their agreement, she turns towards Coulson. “Are we?”

Coulson is staring at Jemma, who’s doing her best to make her determination show on her face. He shakes his head. “We _are_ going to test you for brainwashing though,” he adds.

Jemma sighs at that, because of course they are not letting it go basing solely on her word, but before she has a chance to do anything else Grant has grabbed her tightly, pressing her back against his chest, and she can feel the pressure of a knife against her carotid.

There isn’t a drop of fear in her: in spite of the situation, she can only trust that this is just his plan to get them both out of there. Mostly, she just hates that there’s such an high risk of him getting shot in the head for his trouble.

“You son of a bitch,” Skye hisses. “Let her go.”

“You won’t make it out of here,” May promises, and the threat makes Jemma’s blood run cold for a second. You don’t want the Cavalry as your enemy.

“Let her go, Ward,” Coulson intervenes as well. Jemma has to make an effort to keep her eyes on him, considering how Grant is holding her head back to expose her throat, but she can see that his expression is calm. “You’ve been playing house with her for a while, we both know you are not going to kill her.”

“Are you sure?” Grant replies. Jemma feels the pressure increasing a bit, and when she feels a drop of blood running down her neck she realizes that he opened a small cut. “All that this proves is that _she_ loves me— or that I brainwashed her, whatever helps you sleep at night.” It’s almost fascinating how different he sounds from the Grant she knows, and yet how similar. His cockiness and ability to talk himself out of a tricky situation are very familiar, it’s just all being used in a way that feels wrong, _off_. He’s never been that cold around her— at least, not when it was _directed to_ her. “Are you _really_ willing to take the risk?”

There’s silence, and Jemma sees Coulson’s expression hardening, while Skye curses under her breath.

“Drop the guns or I kill her,” Grant orders.

“Then _I_ kill _you_ ,” May retorts.

“Fine by me,” he says, his tone light. “Better than life in one of your cells, if you ask me.”

Coulson is the first to put the gun down. Skye follows, with a sharp look at Coulson and a piercing glare at Grant. May hesitates.

“Come on, Agent May,” Grant prompts. “Is your revenge worth her life?”

By the end of it, Grant is the only armed person in the room. Well, Jemma does carry a knife with her on his insistence, but she’s not about to take it out now.

“We’ll find you again,” Coulson promises, as they back away towards the door.

“You can try,” Grant retorts.

They get away with their car: Grant drives like a maniac and Jemma is stuck on the passenger seat, holding her breath at every sharp turn and blindly drying the blood dripping from her neck with a tissue. He gets into an underground parking spot to steal another car, and he doesn’t say a word through the whole process, not even as Jemma is standing awkwardly, looking around as if she expected a bunch of SHIELD agents to storm in – not that she’s sure there even _are_ that many left, if the fact that her former team came without any back-up is any indication – while he messes with wires and God knows what else.

It takes him another five minutes of driving in their new car – this time at a reasonable speed and not taking turns every two seconds to lose a possible tail – to talk.

“How’s your neck?” he asks, and he seems— stiff. It’s an odd look on him, it reminds her more of his cover in SHIELD, the man that she fell in love with the first time around, and the thought makes her heart ache with nostalgia.

“It’s just a cut, nothing that won’t heal,” she assures, throwing a light smile his way.

He nods, his hands gripping the wheel all too tightly, which means that he’s on edge. Hell, she can _sense_ the tension radiating from his shoulders.

“What’s wrong?” she prompts, making sure to sound as gentle as she possibly can. She is fairly sure she _knows_ what’s bothering him, but testing the waters to see if he’s in the sharing mood is always a good idea. Unprompted comfort can always come later, after all.

He hesitates. “I didn’t like doing that,” he finally says, carefully.

And there it is, she was right. He used her as leverage and it’s bugging him. “I know you didn’t,” she assures.

“I’m sorry if I scared you,” he goes on. At that, Jemma can’t help letting out a small laugh.

“I wasn’t scared,” she assures, when he looks at her sideways. “I knew you wouldn’t hurt me.”

“I was holding a knife to your neck.”

“You made a move to help us both get out of there. I trust you, and I didn’t doubt you for a second.”

He doesn’t answer, keeping his eyes on the road as he takes some air in.

“I’ll make it up to you,” he finally says.

Her first instinct is to fight him on it, but all things considered, with his history with his brothers and how that incident with the well, that he’s talked to her about exactly _once_ and never mentioned again, went down, it’s no wonder that he wouldn’t be all too happy about hurting her, if only slightly and for a very good reason.

Grant doesn’t have many qualms about violence, that much Jemma has learnt to live with, but there are certain people that he won’t forgive himself for even laying a finger on. It makes her feel pleasingly warm to know that she’s one of those people.

“Oh, that’s a lovely prospect,” she comments, allowing her shoulders to relax against the seat and meeting his eyes as she grins at him. “I have a few ideas.”

His lips twist in a mischievous grin, and most of the tension in his body dissipates.

They’ve had to give up on their house, they’ll have to buy a whole new set of clothes and start again, with new names and new neighbours, new everything, in one of Grant’s safehouses that no one but him knows about: the prospect is tiring and a bit discouraging, considering that she had just begun to feel relaxed and at ease in her new life, not to mention that all that talk about Fitz left her a bit rattled and it’ll take a while to wear off, but Jemma allows herself to take a moment anyway to enjoy her victory at the sight on Grant’s newfound good mood and to revel in the knowledge that he loves her just as much as she loves him.


End file.
